This webzine is online since August 2010 and is completely dedicated to Electronic Music (EM) identified as the Berlin School style and its derived. You will find interviews but mostly reviews of ambient, sequenced and symphonic EM with a glimpse on other related genres. You have questions or want your music to be reviewed? Please read the 123 FAQ section attentively. Bear in mind the main purpose of this Blog. So welcome in and I hope it will guide you into the wonderful world of EM.

samedi 18 janvier 2014

“An intense black ambient and experimental album, Inverno navigates between a Siberian blackness and a Scandinavian heat from the nights of March”

1 Frozen Lake 6:352 Zone of Silence 7:073 Ice Age Coming 5:034 Permafrost 7:135 Winter Song 20:036 Wanderer 3:117 Mountain 10:008 Last Shelter 4:59 9 Summit 3:26Bandcamp(DDL/CD-r 67:40) ***½(Deep dark and experimental ambient EM)Hardly of his highly progressive and experimental sonic experiences with albums such as Connection and Manifesto, Gustavo Jobimconcludes a very charged year 2013 with another album of sound experimentations which kiss the genesis of the ambient and experimental Krautrock movement. “Inverno” floats between our ears with a disconcerting fascination for an album of very dark ambiences. An album weaved in the mysticism of a black winter when the colds are often the only allies of our remorse.It's with shivering pantings that the sonic winter of Gustavo Jobim gets to crystallize in our ears.The arrhythmic movement of "Frozen Lake" is more disturbing than tenebrous with chords which shiver in a long linear movement and of which every echo of the jerks is freeing a wintry weather of ether which floats among organic groans. "Zone of Silence" follows the same principle of hypnosis by the disturbing sounds with winds which this time replace the pantings. The track slips towards a more psychedelic sound fauna with murmurs and rustles which get lost in long dying drones. The intro of "Ice Age Coming" reminds me the heavy pads that Tony Banks used to let fall on the opening of Watcher of the Skies. The track is more caustic with rustlings which sneak through heavy reverberations. This one really asks for patience. Let's say that it scratches the ears and it's rather representative of the naming. But it's nothing compared with the sonic storm of "Permafrost". My Lise has really frown the eyebrows in my direction more than once!"Winter Song" is THE track to be listened on “Inverno”. Rich in emotionalism, it wraps our eardrums with a mixture of very penetrating synth pads which forges the characteristics of the howling winds of a disturbing winter. That reminds me intensely the dying metallic synth lines and pads that Schulze exploited in Cyborg and Mirage. We feel the cold here just a bit, because there is a voracious passion which roars inside this dense ambiospherical shroud where the tears of Daniel Cardona Roman's guitar merge marvellously with the breezes of a Mellotron intensely black and wrapping. This is a great track. After a "Wanderer" less acid than "Ice Age Coming", Gustavo Jobim returns with another long more musical piece in "Mountain" where some slow cold spells wrap an oblong pulsatory movement pulsatoire. The tempo is soft, slow. As a life trapped in the ice. "Last Shelter" is a another charming track. It's more crystal clear, more harmonious with a delicate melody mislaid in a wandering piano of which the weakened notes make symphony with the crackles of ice-cold water and the Siberian winds. "Summit" ends this wintry dawn serenade with explosions, Nordic jets of vapors and gongs lost in a mysterious and enveloping wintry aura, less dark but just as much intriguing.Between Klaus Schulze's Cyborg, Tangerine Dream's Zeit and Stephen Parsick's Permafrost; “Inverno” navigates between a Siberian blackness and a Scandinavian heat from the nights of March. It's an intensely ambient album where, if we accept its hearing invasion, can carry us way beyond what the still life of a merciless winter can well propose with eyes divested of listening. I have to admit that my first contacts have made shivering my ears and that my girl (my soft Lise) has gave some funny looks at me so much the waves which overflowed my headphone revealed an atmosphere of somber sound perversions. Intense, ambient, black and very creative; this last Gustavo Jobim's album is mainly for ears avid to hear farther.Sylvain Lupari (January 18th, 2014)

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Qui suis-je

Bonjour!
My name is Sylvain Lupari from Joliette in Quebec (Canada). I’m known as Phaedream all over the Internet since the beginning of 2000 where I started to write reviews. In 2005, I joined the French Webzine Guts of Darkness and on August 2010 I created a Blog, Synth & Sequences, which has reached the point of 1 000,000 visitors on February 2017 where I also wrote my 1354th review. In French and in English, I wrote more than reviews of EM albums.
This Blog is a huge success and reference about the music which sets my mind free over the years. Too many chronicles, so I have to split this Blog in several sections. Robert Schroeder is the first to welcome my thoughts on Webpress.
So, welcome to this part of my Blog Synth&Sequences which is devoted to the music, the tones and sounds of Aachen’s own Robert Schroeder.
Here you will find informations about his career and discography and latest news as well as deep reviews about his music, his albums.
My only wish is to guide you through his impressive career and may I suggest to visit regularly my Blog Synth & Sequences for more updates on EM.